Dynamic Modulation of Enzyme Activity by Near-Infrared Light

Engineering near-infrared (NIR) light-sensitive enzymes remains a huge challenge. A photothermal effect-associated method is developed for tailoring the enzymatic activity of enzymes by exposure to NIR light. An ultrasmall platinum nanoparticle was anchored in an enzyme to generate local heating upon NIR irradiation, which enhanced the enzyme activity without increasing bulk temperature. Following NIR irradiation, the enzyme activity was tailored rapidly and reversibly, and was modulated by varying laser power density and irradiation time. Four enzymes were engineered, including glucoamylase, glucose oxidase, catalase, and proteinase K with NIR-light sensitivity, and demonstrated their utility in practical applications such as photolithography and NIR light-responsive antibacterial or anticancer actions. Our investigation suggests that this approach could be broadly used to engineer enzymes with NIR-light sensitivity for many biological applications.     

Synthesis and Thermal Performance of Polyurea Microcapsulated Phase Change Materials by Interfacial Polymerization

Microencapsulated phase change materials with paraffin as the core material were synthesized by interfacial polymerization of isophorone diisocyanate with diethylene triamine. The particle size and particle size distribution, morphology, thermal performance and the encapsulation efficiency of the prepared materials were investigated. The results of Fourier transform infrared spectrometer and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy suggested that the paraffin core was well encapsulated by the polyurea resin. The particle size of the prepared materials decreased and its distribution became narrow with the increase of the emulsification time, stirring speed and emulsifier amount. The thermal gravimetric analysis indicated that the prepared materials exhibited good thermal stability, while the differential scanning calorimetry their high encapsulation efficiency.     

A Comparison of NO Reduction Over Mn–Cu/ZSM5 and Mn–Cu/MWCNTs Catalysts Assisted by Plasma at Ambient Temperature

Manganese–copper bimetal oxide catalysts supported on ZSM5 and acid-treated multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were produced by incipient wetness impregnation for selective catalytic reduction of NO with dielectric barrier discharge plasma. Plasma can activate molecules even at ambient temperature, generating active oxygen species such as O, O₃, and HO₂ radicals, which can oxidize NO to NO₂ effectively. The SCR activity of Mn–Cu/MWCNTs was studied and compared to that of the Mn–Cu/ZSM5. The obtained samples were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, ICP, H₂-TPR, Raman spectroscopy, and XPS. The results show that Mn–Cu/MWCNTs catalyst possesses NO removal activity superior to that of the Mn–Cu/ZSM5 catalyst. MWCNTs-based catalyst attains NO removal efficiency of 88% at 480 J/L, while the ZSM5-supported catalyst achieves NO removal efficiency of 82% at the same energy density. The oxygen content increased from 3.33 to 19.07% on the nanotube surface after introducing Mn and Cu, which almost remained unchanged on ZSM5. The oxygen-containing functionalities are important for NO_x adsorption and removal. Moreover, the characterization revealed that CuO is the main phase of copper oxide, but copper dispersion decreases on Mn–Cu/ZSM5 surface because of the formation of copper dimer species. The manganese is well-dispersed on the catalysts, MnO₂ and Mn₂O₃ contents of Mn–Cu/MWCNTs are larger than that of Mn–Cu/ZSM5, MnO₂ is the predominant phase of manganese oxide.     

Effects of Shape of Crowders on Dynamics of a Polymer Chain Closure

Using 3D Langevin dynamics simulations,we investigate the effects of the shape of crowders on the dynamics of a polymer chain closure.The chain closure in spherical crowders is dominated by the increased medium viscosity so that it gets slower with the increasing volume fraction of crowders.By contrast,the dynamics of chain closure becomes very complicated with increasing volume fraction of crowders in spherocylindrical crowders.Notably,the mean closure time is found to have a dramatic decrease at a range of volume fraction of crowders 0.36-0.44.We then elucidate that an isotropic to nematic transition of spherocylindrical crowders at this range of volume fraction of crowders is responsible for the unexpected dramatic decrease in the mean closure time.     

一类特殊的Koszul Calabi-Yau DG代数

假设一个连通上链DG代数A的基分次代数A~#或者同调分次代数H(A)是由一次元素x,y生成的代数kx,y/(xy+yx).本文证明A是Koszul Calabi-Yau DG代数.     

Existence and uniqueness of perturbed reflected jump diffusion processes

In this article, we establish the existence of the solution to the càdlàg perturbed Skorohod problem. As an application, we obtain the existence and uniqueness of the solution to the perturbed reflected jump diffusion processes.     

Superconvergence of the direct discontinuous Galerkin method for convection‐diffusion equations

This paper is concerned with superconvergence properties of the direct discontinuous Galerkin (DDG) method for one‐dimensional linear convection‐diffusion equations. We prove, under some suitable choice of numerical fluxes and initial discretization, a 2k‐th and ‐th order superconvergence rate of the DDG approximation at nodes and Lobatto points, respectively, and a ‐th order of the derivative approximation at Gauss points, where k is the polynomial degree. Moreover, we also prove that the DDG solution is superconvergent with an order k + 2 to a particular projection of the exact solution. Numerical experiments are presented to validate the theoretical results. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 33: 290–317, 2017     

Reflecting Diffusion Processes on Manifolds Carrying Geometric Flow

Let \(L_t:=\Delta _t+Z_t\) for a \(C^{\infty }\)-vector field Z on a differentiable manifold M with boundary \(\partial M\), where \(\Delta _t\) is the Laplacian operator, induced by a time dependent metric \(g_t\) differentiable in \(t\in [0,T_\mathrm {c})\). We first establish the derivative formula for the associated reflecting diffusion semigroup generated by \(L_t\). Then, by using parallel displacement and reflection, we construct the couplings for the reflecting \(L_t\)-diffusion processes, which are applied to gradient estimates and Harnack inequalities of the associated heat semigroup. Finally, as applications of the derivative formula, we present a number of equivalent inequalities for a new curvature lower bound and the convexity of the boundary. These inequalities include the gradient estimates, Harnack inequalities, transportation-cost inequalities and other functional inequalities for diffusion semigroups.